Touch

Ah the good times. Well, rain at least. Today we had a repeat weather performance of Tuesday, except that I felt rather better.

Today a boy told me he was the goodest reader in his class. I hoped to god he wasn't but worryingly his teacher didn't bother to correct him. I waited out of politeness, but then couldn't let this pass, not THIS one.

The newsreader on the evening news has a disconcerting fringe. It is on a 3:1 gradient from left to right as I look at her. I think Dawn French had such a fringe at one point and it too I found disconcerting.

A British documentary I have been watching on TV poses the question, what would it be like not to have touch? Close your eyes and you can imagine in a tiny way what it would be like not to be able to see, block up your ears and you can imagine momentarily, deafness. But touch is more than we realise. One subject is a man who has lived with no sense of touch since an infection many years ago. He has no body awareness, proprioception. For example, even with our eyes closed, we know where our limbs are, how to move, he doesn't. So after his illness, to sit up, he had to look at his stomach and make his muscles contract.
He can't feel pressure, so to teach himself to walk, when he can't even feel the road or pavement beneath his feet, was a unique achievement. No-one else with his disability is known to have done this.
It's a weird concept.